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Recent History and Current Events
Recent and Current Efforts in Advancing Space Technologies At the close of the last century, there was a push to break the limits of current physics and technology and to use this knowledge to create applications for space travel. There was a burst of activity and imagination. Some of those early efforts have terminated, but they laid a foundation on which to build future projects. In addition, the private sector has begun to play an ever larger role in developing space economically. Recent developments in the scientific community have created much excitement for future prospects in this field. NASA established the Breakthrough Propulsion Physics program, led by Marc Millis, in 1996. It was a call to researchers to brainstorm ways to use the known laws of physics to develop propulsion concepts that could be deployed with a concerted research effort. Around the same time, Ronald Evans, an aerospace engineer at BAE Systems in England, decided to champion an effort to find realistic ways to manipulate gravity in a manner similar to how we manipulate electromagnetism by applying Maxwell’s equations. Some of his superiors were convinced as to the benefits and utility of such research, and provided funds to various institutions in order to advance related projects, all under the heading of “Project Greenglow”. Other projects and agencies began to play a strong role in stimulating research on the fringes of testable science, including NASA’s two NIAC programs, and the DoD’s DARPA. The result of these programs was the publication of several papers proposing ways to use relativity, the standard model, quantum electrodynamics, and possibly string theory to solve some of the challenges of space travel and propulsion. They also created a useful methodology for developing, selecting, and evaluating ideas on the quality and testability of the research plan and implementation. This continues to serve as a model that is emulated in the aerospace community. The X Prize competition for orbital flight spurred private companies and entrepreneurs to compete in a new space race. Billionaires began to throw money into their equivalent of toy projects. Some of the important companies started at the time were Space X, Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic, Bigelow Aerospace, Stratolaunch, and Reaction Engines Limited. Both Space X and Blue Origin have successfully developed, launched, and landed semi-reusable orbital delivery vehicles. Virgin Galactic continues to develop its spacecraft that will be launched from a mothership. A similar concept is being pursued by Stratolaunch, and they are currently assembling what will be the largest aircraft in the world by connecting two Boeing 747’s in a twin boom configuration. NASA is finally testing Bigelow’ s inflatable space habitat module on the International Space Station. Reaction Engines Limited is developing a turbine rocket hybrid that could be used to propel a reusable spaceplane. Military and civilian efforts towards supersonic and hypersonic boomless flight appear to be approaching fruition, and may soon result in a true Single Stage to Orbit spaceplane. The last few years have produced several discoveries that should help us understand the intricacies of the universe essential to implement ideas from the BPP and Greenglow. In 2012, the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Switzerland confirmed the discovery of the Higgs boson, lending even more support to the Standard Model. In 2015, LIGO discovered the first gravitational wave signal, supporting one more piece of Relativity. NASA has also renewed a small effort to find novel means of propulsion in the form of “Eagleworks” led by Harold “Sonny” White. In a result that surprised physicists, a copper waveguide through which a microwave frequency was passed produced a measurable thrust force. Many wanted to find a way to dismiss this apparently problematic result, however, I think it should be seen as am opportunity to discover a new facet of physics. There is yet to be a theory proposed for the source of the thrust that has a consensus among scientists. At the time of writing, NASA published confirmatory results for the EM Drive in the AIAA journal. Also, it was recently reported that metallic hydrogen has been created in the lab. If shown to be metastable up to room temperature, it would be an excellent rocket fuel. If it is also a room temperature superconductor, it would be helpful with nuclear reactors and electromagnetic propulsion. Another team in Japan has also recently reported the production of a room temperature superconductor based on graphite and hydrocarbons.